As a new study shows the majority of women are no longer impressed by men
driving flash cars, Radhika Sanghani explains why none of her female
friends would ever 'marry rich'

“She was supposed to buy your shorty Tyco [medicine] with your money. She went to the doctor got lypo with your money.

“If you ain't no punk, holla we want prenup. WE WANT PRENUP.”

Kanye West is right – prenuptial marital agreements are a highly sensible decision if you think your ‘baby mamma’ is a gold-digger, or your new man is after the family silver. But, what he was rapping about in 2005 isn’t really relevant anymore, because 2014’s women aren’t hanging outside clubs waiting for a rich mogul to drown us in bling – we’re out buying our own.

The new Mr Kardashian, as he's probably already found out, having just married into the most successful reality TV family, will be happy to learn that the gold-digger is a dying breed.

Modern women do not want men who can buy us flash cars, liposuction or Louis Vuitton. For a start, most of those things scream Paris Hilton rather than Cara Delevingne. But if we do want them, the chances are that we will save up for them ourselves.

But it’s not just that we’re in a better economic situation than ever before - our attitudes are changing. In my own friendship group, back when we were doing our GCSEs and Kanye was rapping about prenups, we all seriously contemplated the benefits of 'marrying rich' (ducks for cover). Even though we were all keen to make our own mark in the world, we gravely concluded that the ideal situation would be to invest in some wealthy husbands in case our careers failed.

Almost 10 years on, none of us feel the same way. It’s not necessarily that we’re all earning six-figure salaries - (believe me we’re all firmly stuck in the lower tax brackets) - it’s more that we’ve realised that money isn’t that important. We’re in our twenties in a post-recession world, and a lot of my friends and I have read about enough wealthy couples who have found themselves bankrupt - morally and financially.

Us millenials know that money is transient. It’s why (forgetting morals and romance for a moment) we don’t think it’s sensible to choose a man just for his pay packet, because he might be made redundant months later. If we want to make enough money to go on the odd holiday and eventually have children, we expect to do it alone.

Sorry Kanye, you're not our type now

It would be an added bonus for us if we met a man who earned a good sum of money, but in no way do we rely on it. We know that we have to be able to survive alone, and that’s absolutely fine. If anything, I think it’s pretty sad for a woman to say that she needs a man to be able to survive financially.

But it’s also a fashion thing. A man showing off pockets stuffed with money is not attractive – if anything, it’s slightly off-putting for the majority of us who don’t have that. For girls like me who see Topshop as upmarket, it just doesn’t work. A date of mine once picked me up in a convertible car, in central London with its congestion charges and obscene car park costs no less. It was downhill from there on. And no, dear reader, there wasn’t a second date - his chat was as bad as his ride.

It seems I’m not alone in this view. The majority of women associate fancy cars with unflattering characteristics, and 56 per cent of women think the men who drive them are show-offs and arrogant. A savvy 17 per cent even see these men as insecure, according to new research by dating websiteAnastasiaDate, commissioned ahead of the Gumball 3000 rally, happening this weekend in London.

It just proves that there is a widespread change in women’s attitudes. The fast car driving male pinups of previous decades have become outdated and now a man parking his Ferrari in a busy street is more likely to elicit a proper eye-roll than feelings of sheer lust. We just don’t live in that kind of world anymore.

In my circle of friends, we value innovation and intelligence over money – we’ve all seen enough episodes of Made In Chelsea to know that wealth doesn’t always go hand in hand with a decent personality. Flash cars aren’t cool, but creating your own tech start-up is. But showing off about it isn’t either.

So I’m glad that Kanye has found his ideal mate with the equally successful Kim Kardashian. Gold-digger may have hit the correct note in 2005 for some people, pre-recession, but it's out of date now. If anything, we’ve all gone back to the Destiny’s Child days, circa 2000, when Independent Women bought their own diamonds and rings.

What the band sang back then still holds true now: "Try to control me boy you get dismissed / Pay my own fun, oh and I pay my own bills / Always 50:50 in relationships."